UpLamp turns your phone into a bedside lamp

UpLamp is a bedside lamp/docking station that’s powered by your phone. Not only that, it’s operated with gestures.

Clap your hands to turn the light on or off and to snooze the alarm. Wave your hand to dim or brighten the light, or again to snooze the alarm. (That’s two ways to snooze the alarm. Dangerous.)

You’ll need to install the app to make the gestures work, but it’s free to do so.

However, it’s only compatible with the iPhone 5 and later, and Samsung Galaxy S5 and later, plus its Edge variations. Though the firm promises to make a custom adapter to fit your phone, if you specify.

If you don’t move for thirty minutes, it assumes you’ve gone or are going to sleep, and automatically dims itself.

The gesture controls are cool, but aside from that, there’s no real advantage of having it powered by your phone. Worse, if you want to read your phone in bed – as many of us do – you’ll have to do so lit only by its screen, as the lamp won’t work without the phone docked. Which seems a bit of an oversight.

It’s raised just over €9,000 of its €36,000 goal and still has 54 days to go. Pledge €49 (£38), and it can be yours. If successful, it’ll ship in August.

Why we’re different

Unlike other sites, we thoroughly review everything we recommend. We use industry standard tests to evaluate products in order to assess them properly. We’ll always tell you what we find.
Tell us what you think - send your emails to the Editor.